The One Point of Marriage

15 Sunday Nov 2020

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We are living in a post-Christian culture. We have lost sight of our reason for being. God has been eclipsed from our culture and we are left to our own devices to answer the really big questions of life:

Why am I here?
Where am I going?
How do I get there?[1]

Lacking a moral compass, our culture has become a collection of self-serving mini-gods, with each individual determining what is right and wrong. Life has no purpose so do whatever you like, as long as no one gets hurt. Sadly, many people are left wounded by this culture of power, pleasure-seeking, and money. The prevailing emotions are hopelessness and despair.

Fr. John Riccardo in his new book Rescued: The Unexpected and Extraordinary News of the Gospel contends that a biblical worldview is required to answer the important questions of life. The book succinctly tells “the story” of God’s determination to get His world back through the radical gift of His Son, Jesus Christ. This book will help you to move from head knowledge of the gospel story to a radical transformation of your heart.

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Remedy for Fear and Anxiety During the Lockdown

08 Sunday Nov 2020

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st-dymphnaLast week we discussed finding peace in the midst of the pandemic lockdown. Are you feeling anxious and overwhelmed? Are your days filled with fear and worry? In prison, Paul wrote to the young church at Philippi, exhorting them to follow his remedy for anxiety, fear, and worry.

Philippians 4:4-7 (RSV)

4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.

5 Let all men know your forbearance. The Lord is at hand.

6 Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

7 And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

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Finding Peace in the Midst of the Lockdown

01 Sunday Nov 2020

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COVID Window

He has said, “I will never fail you nor forsake you.” Hebrews 13:5

Our country is nearly nine months into a lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Parents are forced to work from home while schooling their children via remote learning. Tensions are running high. Patience is wearing thin. Tempers are growing short and anger levels are escalating. Both parents and children miss socializing with family and friends. Many are fearful of catching COVID and transmitting it to the vulnerable. Many are isolated and alone.

We are made for community! Long-term isolation is leading to increased levels of anxiety, depression, and despair for many. Similar to wearing a mask, family life has become suffocating and you feel helpless to stop it. You are desperate for anything that will give you a glimmer of hope.

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Family: Imitate Christ in Self-Giving Love

22 Thursday Oct 2020

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JPII Giving of Self

Today the Catholic Church celebrates the Memorial Feast of St. John Paul II. For John Paul II, the family plays a vital role in establishing a civilization of love and the renewal of Christian culture. Throughout his pontificate, John Paul II emphasized that a new springtime of evangelization would blossom through the family. Living abundantly through Christ’s grace, the family would change the culture and the world.

Man… cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself. (Gaudium et Spes, 24)

These words which were proclaimed by Pope Paul VI in the Vatican II encyclical Gaudium et Spes (Pastoral Constitution on The Church in The Modern World)[1] became the foundation of the writings of Pope St. John Paul II on marriage and family.

In 1960, while Bishop of Krakow, Karol Wojtyla published Love and Responsibility. This foundational work dealt with the issue of how we can transform a sexual urge that is fundamentally selfish into something loving and unselfish.

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Marriage: Witness to God’s Faithful Love

18 Sunday Oct 2020

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hands

God loves us with a definitive and irrevocable love…married couples share in this love…it supports and sustains them, and…by their own faithfulness they can be witnesses to God’s faithful love. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1648

The faithful love of husband and wife in marriage is a witness to God’s faithful love to His people. You cannot find a more noble task. Or a more impossible one! We are wounded and broken people. We cannot live this kind of love on our own. But God has not left us alone. In the Sacrament of Matrimony, we get grace to love as Christ loved: freely, totally, faithfully, and fruitfully. Continue reading →

The Tumbler Called “Family Life”

11 Sunday Oct 2020

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Family_Polishing the Rough Edges

If you are like many couples, before you said, “I do,” you had an idyllic view of marriage and family life. You and your spouse were in love and there would never be any friction between you. The PREPARE/ENRICH pre-marital inventory calls this “Idealistic Distortion” or looking through “rose-colored” glasses.

A few weeks or months into marriage, your beloved’s quirky traits that you thought were so cute when you were dating, now are rather annoying. Reality begins to set in and your idyllic view of marriage is now challenged by the tensions of daily living with another person. Marriage is a union of two selfish and wounded people. If you thought that you were entering a perfect marriage, as soon as you entered that union, it was no longer perfect. Along with our virtues, we each bring baggage to the marriage. Continue reading →

Jesus is the Answer

04 Sunday Oct 2020

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Jesus the Good Shepherd

I am the Good Shepherd

Fr. John Riccardo of ACTS XXIX, an apostolate of the Archdiocese of Detroit, is fond of saying, “The world will find happiness to the extent that it finds Jesus.” We are living in a time of great division, anger, and strife. Cities are being burned to the ground. Civil unrest is rampant. As a culture, we have lost the ability to discuss our differences. Strife, despair, and hopelessness are extracting a terrible toll on our lives. For the first time in 100 years, the life expectancy in the United States has decreased three years in a row. Sociologists says that we are dying “deaths of despair.”

What the world is in particular need of today is the credible witness of people enlightened in mind and heart by the word of the Lord, and capable of opening the hearts and minds of many to the desire for God and for true life, life without end.[1] Porta Fidei (Door of Faith), §15

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Do You Have a Heart Condition?

27 Sunday Sep 2020

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heart-cath_crop

What comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart. Matthew 15:18

Just as a nutritional diet low in saturated fats and exercise is important to the physical health of your heart, so is a regular regiment of prayer, Scripture reading, and reception of the Sacraments important for the spiritual health of your heart. A steady diet high in sodium and saturated fats leads to plaque buildup in the arteries of the heart, leading to heart disease.

The same is true of your spiritual heart. Like plaque, unresolved anger, bitterness, and unforgiveness can severely weaken your spiritual heart, blocking the flow of God’s love, mercy, and forgiveness to your spouse and family. This heart disease is at the root of marital strife and can result in the death of a marriage.

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Take Up Your Cross

20 Sunday Sep 2020

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Christ on the Cross_Eugène Delacroix_c1835 Christ on the Cross, Eugène Delacroix, c. 1835

Last week, we commemorated the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross by urging you to view your spouse as your cross, your path to sanctification. This week, we want to delve into the theology behind the exhortation.

Jesus said, “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Lk 9:23).

Denying ourselves and taking up our cross entails sacrifice. It means giving up something for the sake of something better. For example, we might give up time that we would have spent taking a nap so that we can read a book to our three-year-old daughter. Or it might mean biting our tongue instead of lashing out at our spouse who has just said something hurtful.

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Feast of the Exultation of the Cross

14 Monday Sep 2020

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ExaltationoftheCross

We should glory in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, for he is our salvation, our life and our resurrection: through him we are saved and made free.[1]

Today the Church celebrates the Feast of the Exultation of the Cross. This feast is a celebration of God’s greatest work: Christ’s salvific death on the Cross and His Resurrection, through which death was defeated and the gates to Heaven were opened. The cross is the universal image of Christian belief. Today is a time to ponder what Christ accomplished through His horrific Passion. Look upon the wounds of Christ, gaze into His eyes. See the love that He has for you; His willingness to suffer and die so that you may gain eternal life.

“If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” Luke 9:23

Jesus calls us to follow him by taking up our cross daily. In marriage, your spouse is your cross. Some of you may be snickering in agreement with this statement but this cross is your path to sanctification. As Christ was wounded and died on the cross, marriage binds two wounded individuals in a lifelong covenant. The wounds of your spouse are holy ground. We are called to unite our woundedness and suffering to those of Christ on the cross.

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